


And No One Else

by Mitchellsfingerlessgloves



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: (Somewhat) Unhappy Ending, Angst, F/M, Future Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitchellsfingerlessgloves/pseuds/Mitchellsfingerlessgloves
Summary: Helene and Fyodor meet when they are both little.  It is a love that is doomed from the start.





	And No One Else

“Who is she?” 

Anatole looked up from the snow he was trudging with his boot, face glowing pink against the stark white of the winter day. His face lit up when he looked at the pretty girl standing on the back porch, wrapped tightly in flowing furs and a pompous hat. She was giggling with a plain looking girl, and Fyodor struggled to take his eyes off her.

“That’s my sister, Helene.” The blond boy nodded knowledgeably and raised a hand over his head, waving it frantically until the girls took notice of him. Helene, with a roll of her eyes but also a loving smile, waved back, followed swiftly by her plain friend. 

Fyodor raised a hand briefly, still concentrating on the russet skinned, curly haired girl that Anatole claimed was his sister and took his breath away. 

When the children returned to the house, they sat by the fireplace with cups of hot chocolate. Anatole insisted on playing a cards games with Fyodor, getting a few of the cards sticky with chocolate as he dealt, while the girls sat opposite them on the carpet, whispering and laughing behind their hands.

Fyodor can’t help chancing glances at the pretty Kuragina princess, bathed in the warm light of the fire which made her skin glow a beautiful brown hue. Anatole seems oblivious to the fact that his friend isn’t paying him as much as attention as he would like, tugging on Fyodor’s hand whenever he misses he round. 

Fyodor is surprised by his feelings for Princess Kuragina; he mostly thinks that girls are prissy and fragile and frightfully boring. Most of the girls his age were also plain, his mother and his friends being beautiful and put together- she had always comforted him that as he got older, he would start to find girls more interesting, and he needn’t worry about marriage at his age.

Being around Princess Kuragina, however, made Fyodor think that, if he could marry her, he wouldn’t mind it too much.

When Fyodor’s father arrived to take him home, the ten year old boy mimicked his father’s farewell to the lady of the house, sinking into a wobbly bow and bidding an earnest, “Good night,” to Helene. The girl smiled warmly and curtseyed back, softly telling Fyodor that he, too, should have a good night. 

*

Fyodor’s family cannot afford to send him to a fancy boarding school, so he attends school locally, while Anatole is shipped off the Paris to learn the true makings of a prince. He misses his younger friend terribly, and the Kuragins seem to have a similar sentiment as they invite Fyodor to dine with them once a week. 

He sits cautiously next to Helene; she is fifteen and has blossomed from pretty to beautiful seemingly overnight. Fyodor, just thirteen, is just as smitten with her as he had been when he was ten, although he could speak to her more easily.

Her plain friend, Mary he discovered, was also there to dine with them, and she and Helene usually disappeared after they had eaten, leaving Fyodor alone and desperate to be involved. 

However, when Mary isn’t in attendance at dinner, or she’s called away soon after, Fyodor and Helene spend their evening together. Sometimes Hippolyte will indulge the two younger people in polite conversation, but he will swiftly leave the drawing room in favour of addressing letters to friends or young ladies, allowing the teenagers to talk alone.

They spoke of Anatole, the boy who had introduced the pair and they both missed so terribly, they spoke of books and their studies; Helene offered stories of lessons in propriety, while Fyodor talked of sports they played in the cold and the physical brawls so many boys got into.

“I do hope you’re not fighting, Fyodor,” Helene said, voice disapproving, but the twinkle in her eye suggested she was teasing. 

“I’d only ever fight for a young lady’s honour,” Fyodor shot back, a boyish grin on his face. Helene laughed delicately behind her hand, and his smile widened impossibly. “And please, Princess Kuragina, call me Fedya.”

“Fedya?” She repeated, blinking at him.

“It’s what my friends call me.”

Helene smiled once more and nodded in agreement. “And you may call me Helene. Not in front of my father, of course.”

Fyodor placed a hand upon his heart, mouth in a straight line. “Of course.”

*

It is when Fyodor turns eighteen and starts to be referred to as Dolokhov that he understands that he is in love. He has joined the Russian military, is to be called to battle at any moment, but he has remained surrounded by the wealthy and unaffected, and so is invited to a ball, held by Anna Pavlovna. 

He and Anatole arrive together, Helene having been led ahead with her older brother Hippolyte, accompanied by Princess Mary and her brother Andrey.

The pair of young soldiers approach the pair of princesses with ease, two women who they have grown up with, although Fyodor cannot help his increased heart rate as he walks towards Helene, draped in blue silk with a golden pendant falling upon her bosom. 

He swallows thickly when he comes to a halt, bowing to Helene and asking, with a tone he hoped was a confident tone, “I hope I might have a dance, Princess Kuragina.”

Helene smiles languidly at Fyodor and says, apologetically, “I’m afraid my dance card is full.” She waves the card and, lo and behold, names were scrawled in each space, various men who made Fyodor look poor, small and insignificant.

The two Kuragins were conversing with only their eyes and gentle head movements, and Anatole suddenly asks, “Princess Mary? If I might have an ecossaise?”

Mary’s face spilts into a delighted smile and she offers Anatole her dance card, only half full and mostly with men the same age as her ailing father, all friends of the family with only one or two suitors thrown in the mix.

Fyodor politely asks the same, giving the gentle girl and smile and a nod when he returns her dance card. When he turns back to Helene, she is wearing an unreadable expression, although she holds his gaze, making him shift uncomfortably in his uniform. 

“Princess Kuragin, if I cannot have a dance, may I at least accompany you to fetch a drink?”

The pair share a knowing look, and Helene offers her gloved hand to Fyodor, who leads her to a table to pick up a glass of wine.

“Surely you can stand to leave one of these crotchety old men to give me one dance?” Fyodor leans down to whisper into Helene’s ear, a touch too close to be considered appropriate, although most patrons pay the two no mind. 

Helene slowly sips from her glass, humming slightly as she replies, “That would be rude, dear Fedya.”

“Well what about one of these suitors you’re surely going to refuse? Pyotr Bezukhov? The man has no sense of social propriety.” Fyodor scoffs and hands Helene her dance card back, resting gently upon the table.

“And you do, _soldier_?” Helene finishes her drink and sets the glass down before offering Fyodor her hand. “Pierre tries. Besides, he does not need a sense of social propriety when he has his money and _books_.” She rolls her eyes but, upon catching Fyodor’s confused expression, softens her features. “Come then. Perhaps I’m… Ill, and require your assistance to get some air.”

Fyodor grins and escorts Helene out of the exquisite ballroom, past the lingering eyes of already rejected suitors and disapproving ladies who knew what to expect from a soldier. 

The handsome pair stand together in the hallway, the music from the ballroom muffled but still audible. Fyodor places both hands upon Helene’s hips, giving her a moment to snake her hands around his neck before leading around in a tight, slow circle, out of time to the mazurka that was being played.

“You certainly don’t dance well,” Helene teases, but her voice is low and breathless, and the glint in her eye is kind rather than malicious.

Fyodor smiles back, a cheeky thing, and replies, “I prefer to do things my own way, I must say.”

They spin in their circle several more times, bodies swaying against one another and faces close, breath mingling between them. 

“I see.”

Her easy grace, breathtaking beauty, charm and wit flood Fyodor’s senses all at once- she is intoxicating, and she knows it. Fyodor, who had harboured such strong feelings for the woman in his arms since he was eleven years old, feels overwhelmed and, without thinking, bends his neck and kissed her.

Helene squeezes him closer to her, kissing back fervently, causing Fyodor’s stomach to coil pleasantly and heart to thrum in his chest. 

The music swiftly changed in the ballroom, and Helene pushes at his chest. The loss of warmth is almost painful to Fyodor.

“I…” For the first time since he had met her, Helene does not look confident. In fact, she looks sad, and that breaks his heart. He reaches for her chin, tilting it gently up to look directly at her glistening eyes, and slightly trembling lip.

“I am betrothed.”

“What?” Fyodor’s hand drops, as does his jaw and he takes a step back from Helene. “When?”

“Only a week ago; oh, Fedya, I’m sorry!”

Fyodor scrubs a hand over his face, shoulders slumping. “I should have asked for your hand when I had the chance, but I couldn’t, Helene! Not when I didn’t even have a rank, nor any sort of title. Not when I was a child without a penny to his name. Now, though…”

Helene fills the silence that Fyodor leaves with a pained, “My father will still say ‘no’. Especially after accepting Bezukhov’s offer-”

“Bezukhov? ‘Pierre’ Bezukhov?” Fyodor hisses, disbelieving.

The doors to the ballroom swing open, and Fyodor and Helene leapt apart, looking guilty as couples and groups file out of the ballroom, giggling and resting upon each other.

Feigning nonchalance, the pair walk, a body’s space between them, through the sprawling estate. Fyodor knows that his face a picture of fury but he can’t control it as they walk, his thoughts filled with images of the bumbling oaf that the woman he loved was to be married to: a man who could barely speak to a woman, let alone know how to pleasure her, how to cherish her.

“You can’t blame me.” 

Fyodor almost snarls, whipping around to glare at Helene, but upon seeing her distraught expression his face softens and his heart melts.

“I don’t.” They are outside, in a courtyard, without cloaks, and Helene is shivering in the crisp night. He reaches forward and embraces her, resting a hand upon her thick curls and bending his face down. Helene presses herself into his chest, her fingers fiddling with the buttons of his uniform jacket, and he could feel the sobs rack through her body.

“We could run away?” Helene looks up at Fyodor, hopeful. “Flee to Paris or- or Warsaw. I could live simply.”

Fyodor can’t help the chuckle that escapes him as he looks down at the pampered young woman, donned in a dress more expensive than the room he rented, than any of the things he had owned and likely ever would.

“This from a woman who doesn’t even undress herself? I could not provide you with what you need. With what you _deserve_.”

Helene opens her mouth to protest and Fyodor speaks over her, “I know it, Helene. You think I haven’t thought about it? I’ve considered every option to have you for my own. I planned my asking for your hand, from your father, from you. I’ve met with troika drivers in the fantasy of whisking you away in the dead of night, but we can’t entertain the idea, dearest. Not with the amount of trouble that you will get into.”

“And you?”

“It’s not of importance.” Fyodor waves a hand. “My dearest Helene, I cannot be your husband but please, let me love you.”

Helene doesn’t respond, looking past Fyodor and back up to the Pavlovna estate with glittering eyes. She is still shivering, and Fyodor pulls away to take his uniform jacket off, slipping it around her shoulders before she can protest.

“Yes.” She mumbles so quietly Fyodor could barely hear her, but she lifts her head and, with tears in her eyes, presses her lips to his in another soft kiss.

“I promise you, Helene, I will do all in my power to make you happy and prove my love to you, every day. And no matter whatever happens, with your family, with _Pierre_ , I will be behind you, whichever way you need me.”

“And I for you, darling Fedya,” Helene whispered, curling her fingers into the hairs at the nape of his neck. “And I for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this relationship does not get the respect that it deserves, and I am here to rectify that.  
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading!


End file.
